


On and Off the Mat

by BethAdastra



Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: F/M, Guest Starring Shower Masturbation, Interspecies Sex, Locker Room Sex, Pre-Andromeda
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-29
Updated: 2017-10-18
Packaged: 2018-11-20 23:04:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11344947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BethAdastra/pseuds/BethAdastra
Summary: (Pre-game) Tiran is terribly wound up in the days leading up to departure from the Milky Way. When two humans step into his gym and mix things up a little, he finds himself fascinated and maybe a little more than attracted to the young woman, who has a knack for knocking others on their asses.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was a challenge to myself to write a pre-Andromeda encounter... and now, 7k words later, I think I made good on that. Enjoy! This is self indulgence at its finest.

_Andromeda better be worth all the trouble I’ve been going through._

Tiran Kandros suppressed a snarl as he hoisted a set of weights back onto their rack. He was scheduled to leave for the Nexus in a few days, and the past week had been fraught with anxiety and aggrivation. 

Young soldiers streamed in and out of the Citadel every day, each one being filtered through their homeworlds and Citadel security, and constantly filling his aural canals with questions that he didn’t have the answer to. It made his antisocial tendencies border on unhealthy. Even by turian standards, he wasn’t very social or nurturing, but for some spirit-forsaken reason, others kept turning to him. Asking for advice, striking up idle conversations, the usual.

So when Jien Garson suggest he spend time at the training facilities, helping the militia and security forces train to be at top physical form before the trip, he could have practically kissed her.

Hiding at the gym and barking at green soldiers took off some of the edge, but he knew he wouldn’t be fully happy until he was sealed in his cryo pod and far, far away from the bustle of the Citadel. Sparring with like-minded soldiers gave him the authority and excitement that came with being a lieutenant, without the banality of Heirarchy rules.

So when a pair of young humans wandered into the gym, his territory, he had already prepared a speech about where they could stick their Earth-centric ideas.

The pair of humans had set down large, worn out duffels, each smattered with patches and badges from a colorful range of Sol system locations. They wore leggings and shirts that had seen better days, and large, tired, matching grins. Both humans had a slightly pale but pink tinge to their skin; it must have been a while since they had been on a station or planet with adequate natural solar radiation.

At least they weren’t fresh from an academy graduation.

The woman, whose hair was yanked back into a ponytail, waved off her partner before taking to the track. The man turned his attention to the sparring mats, and made his way to stretch a few yards away from Tiran.

It was comforting to see that he wasn’t bothered by the number of nonhumans using the space. After Tiran left Palaven and the military, it had been unnerving to see so many humans still flinch at the sight of a turian. Or worse, try to punch one. Tiran had learned that the hard way the one time he visited Earth. 

Their squeamishness would have been endearing if it hadn’t been for the fact that they were so good with guns.

While Tiran groaned his way through some deep leg stretches, the human woman kept jogging around the gym, and the man used a free space along the wall to stretch his back and legs.

One of the younger turians gestured towards him, asking to practice some grips and punches.

They kept it light; the punches were quick, and they kept their fingers curled to prevent talon marks. At one point, Tiran got tired of his opponent’s ducking, so he jabbed out a leg to kick his partner, and smacked him on the fringe.

“Nice moves!”

The human wandered over by Tiran, wiping his forehead with the back of his arm. His alien grin had an unnatural curl, but Kandros didn’t feel threatened by it.

“Who do I talk to if I want a round?”

Tiran looked him over, and waved his mandibles. _Friendly one, this guy._

“Nobody in particular, soldier. Find a sparring partner, and its first come, first served.”

“Well then,” he cracked his neck and laughed, “want to give it a go?”

Before the turian could answer, the human woman jogged up to them and smacked a hand on her companion’s shoulder.

“Already making friends, Scott?” _Ah, so one goes by Scott._

“You jealous?”

“Pfft,” her smile flashed a row of flat white teeth, “as if. I’m just looking forward to seeing you get your ass kicked.”

She sauntered over to one side of one of the open sparring mats, and flopped down with crossed legs to watch.

Scott rolled his eyes, growling, “Sisters,” and nodded his head in her direction so that they could get started.

 

_-five minutes later-_

 

Scott was glistening with sweat, and wheezing while he pulled himself back up to his feet. Tiran’s mandibles were pulled back to reveal his teeth and raspy tongue while he struggled for air in his own turian way.

Scott had been dangerously quick on his feet, and was creative enough with them in a bind that a small crowd had gathered near their mat to cheer and holler for the dueling pair.

But Scott didn’t have the arm span that Tiran had, nor had he really spent enough time warming up, his hits often missed or didn’t have the desired effect.

Tiran had won, but only barely.

While he waited for his heart to return to a normal rate, he found himself glancing at the woman, who had been cheering for him the entire time. Even if it had only been a means to taunt Scott, Tiran had enjoyed the cheerleading all the same. And now, he was curious about her. He didn’t even have her name. 

For now, he settled on Ponytail.

Before he could get around to asking Scott or the sister her name, she had jumped on her feet and was followed by the turian woman that had been sitting next to her. The pair drew a few “oohs” and playful jibes, and nearly half the gym went to circle around them.

Major Sajax was a fierce ground soldier, and a ruthless strategist. Most duels with her ended quickly. Tiran had had his fair share of unsuccessful encounters with her, and he always counted himself lucky that when it mattered, they were on the same sides of the battlefield.

Ponytail said something, and Sajax tilted her head in a laugh.

Now Tiran was very curious. Sajax rarely laughed, so either she was in a very good mood, or this human was very good at making friends.

While he pondered, Ponytail reached back and adjusted her hair. Her playful smile was traded in for a look that was darker, more intense, even more so than her brother.

Major Sajax stretched her arms so that they cracked, and fluttered her mandibles in an attempt to intimidate her partner. The turian cues didn’t have a strong effect, all that Scott’s sister did was hop on her feet a few times and ignore her opponent.

Tiran couldn’t help but notice that Scott, who was now sitting next to him, had become visibly tense. Sure, he leaned back and had a faint smile, but there was something distant in his eyes, and his jaw was set forward just enough that he could see small ropes of muscle.

Ponytail lunged at Sajax before anybody was fully ready for it. 

The entire room was howling indignantly within seconds. Thankfully, Sajax had years of military training to fall back on, along with a wrestling mat that could take her fall and be used as leverage when her legs kicked up to deflect the human’s follow through. One foot caught her square in the shoulder, and she let out a graceless “Oof!” before letting her body windmill around and away.

Sajax was back on her feet in good time. She gave a wide, turian smile filled with teeth and chortled over her opponent. They circled each other for a few seconds. Tiran found himself flinching at each blow that was shared on the mat. He knew this would be a fight based on things like speed, on agility, maybe even cleverness… but he had not been expecting Ponytail to be such a heavy hitter.

If it hadn’t been for the fight being so captivating, he might have turned to Scott to ask him what Spirit-forsaken hole the two of them had crawled out of to be such fierce fighters. But he felt like turning away from such a good fight would be bad manners.

The duel raged on, each minute wearing into both opponent. Their shirts were stained with sweat, and their movements became slower, more desperate.

At one point, Sajax took advantage of having the longer arms, and swung in an attempt to clothesline the human. She barely ducked; her ponytail was whipped by the air and muscle that rushed overhead, and she almost lost her footing.

The turian went in for the kill. She crouched, twisting her talons so that she could grab her opponent’s waist and slam her down.

She was so close. 

But then she was too close, and neither she nor Tiran or any other spectator realized it until it was too late.

The human held her arms out as if thrown off guard, but her fists were clenched and her mouth was pinched in a line of concentration.

And she glowed bright blue.

She had lured Sajax in with an easy hit, and was winding up to hit her with some biotics while the turian was occupied with pushing her down.

Biotics flared across her arm like tendrils of smoke. Sajax’s mandibles clacked together defensively, and she smacked the woman’s forearm away before she could fully take aim. Almost instantly, the glow was gone, and Ponytail used it to her advantage. Sajax hadn’t backed far enough away from her; Ponytail lifted her now-dormant arm as if drawing an arrow to a bow, and elbowed Sajax right in the face.

By now the room was howling. Ponytail’s biotic distraction had given her the upper hand.

Wasting no time, the small human used the few milliseconds that she had to her advantage, and gripped the front of Sajax’s carapace, and tossed her over like a dirty sweater. As the large turian went down, she managed to get one last kick in, and Ponytail fell on the ground in a heap with her.

It felt like everyone in the room was screaming. It wouldn’t have been a large stretch of the imagination to believe credit chits were being pulled out of pockets at that moment.

Tiran watched both of them, unsure of why it was so important for him to watch them get up. Both were lying on their backs and wheezing like young turians finishing their first day at bootcamp. After a moment, Sajax buried her face in the mat, groaning and struggling to lift herself by her arms. Ponytail tried to sit up in a crunch position, but failed terribly. Everyone was either holding their breath, waiting for a victor, or howling bawdy words of encouragement.

Sajax tried to push up again, and failed.

Ponytail crunched again, a pained expression slashing across her face…

And she sat up.

She clutched her knees, solely focused on the act of rising up from the grime of the mat. She huffed and groaned, and a thin red line trickled down from one nostril and over her lip. When she had righted herself enough to balance on her knees, she turned to Scott and Tiran, and flashed them a shameless grin, and held one hand up in a finger gun motion.

The room burst into a mix of delighted cheers and more than a few groans of disappointment. 

The mysterious human newcomer had taken the victory in a flash of biotics.

Scott lifted himself from his sitting position, and hopped onto the mat to help his sister. Of course, Sajax had managed to pull herself up by this point, and she was already patting Ponytail’s back and laughing before the brother could get there to check on her now-bloody nose.

She was no longer fighting, but each inhale caused her biotics to flare just barely, and it made her glow with a light like that of the Trebian sun. Tiran was only slightly awestruck. How could something so terrible and deadly be so beautiful?

“Pathfinder, sir!”

A disembodied voice shattered the moment. Everyone turned to see two new humans enter the gym. One was a lanky woman with pale hair and a concerned look, the other was an older man with a black jacket and an equally dark expression on his face. Tiran didn’t overlook the Pathfinder logo that graced his right shoulder.

_Well. This just got interesting._

The man marched forward to the mat where Ponytail and her brother sat. The woman stayed put by the doorway.

All of the onlookers had a magical moment of self-awareness, as if they had collectively remembered that each and every one of them needed to be somewhere other than the gym. Hums and chirps and grumbles were exchanged as everybody streamed towards the locker rooms, and out the doors with their changes of clothing. Tiran decided putting the unracked weights back in their rightful places was the best way to spend his time and energy.

The Pathfinder was crouched at Ponytail’s level, the three of them talking in low but vicious tones. Even with single larynxes and being halfway across the room, any turian could have picked out that the conversation only barely qualified as being civil.

It was just Tiran’s luck that he had volunteered to break down the mats and wipe everything down before being stowed away. And a wiser turian might have thought it the perfect opportunity to take a break, maybe find some dinner while simultaneously avoiding the Pathfinder-shaped elephant in the room.

But Tiran was not a wise turian.

He lingered on the other side of the room, only moving to store random items.

At one point the Pathfinder must have said something, because Ponytail dragged herself up from the mat with a pained but angry sound. She swatted her brother’s hand away, and stormed off to the locker room before anyone could stop her.

The Pathfinder followed, a look of righteous fury knotted across his face.

Scott and the strange woman stepped together, and exchanged some awkward phrases.

Several angry sounds came from the room, and Tiran became painfully aware that both Scott and the pale woman were visibly uncomfortable with the current state of affairs. Their arms were crossed, and they each were frozen in place, staring at the ground and wincing when a suspiciously loud sound that could have believably been a duffel being thrown by biotics echoed in the almost-empty gym.

After a moment of anxiety-inducing silence, the Pathfinder exited the locker room alone.

He marched by Scott, and waved a hand at his own companion. 

“The shuttle leaves at twenty-one hundred hours. Make sure she’s ready,” Ryder said to Scott. Tiran still had a lot to learn about human facial features, and maybe it was a trick of the lights, but he could have sworn that the human Pathfinder looked five years older, and spoke as if he knew that that time had been taken off his life.

The Pathfinder set a hand on Scott’s shoulder, and with an uncomfortable jolt, Tiran only just then realized that the three of them must be related.

_Good to see that the Kandros’ aren’t the only family with a fucked up dynamic._

Tiran shook his head of the bitter thoughts, and stepped next to Scott after the Pathfinder left. Scott had his mouth set in a grim line that made him look older.

“Sorry about that. Family stuff.”

“Want me to go wait outside?”

“Nah. She’s been under a lot of stress. So has Dad. They’ve never really seen eye to eye about much.”

“Ah.”

Scott chuckled, and brushed a hand through his hair.

“She’ll be alright. Mars was her family for the last few years. I can’t blame her for being a little tense about all of this… hell, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I think I might even be missing Arcturus Station,” he laughed, “change is hard.”

Tiran tried to flare his mandibles as little as possible; it was hard to remember that showing rows of sharp teeth was mostly seen as aggressive to humans.

“Anyways,” Scott ruffled his hair one last time before turning on his heel, “I promised an old friend that we would get drinks before I left. And I’m starving after kicking your ass.”

“Will she be alright?” Tiran nodded his head towards the lockers. The human sighed.

“Yeah. She just needs some time alone. Family conversations make her testy, but I know her well enough to know that she’ll be the first one there with all her gear at the landing dock tonight.”

“Do I have to worry about her throwing any biotic punches if I go and get my things?” Tiran chose his words carefully. He was still learning a lot of human customs, and privacy was one that many humans valued.

Scott looked thoughtful, and grimaced. As he spoke, he walked over to his duffel and hoisted it with a grunt.

“She can handle herself. Just don’t try to be chummy. Like I said, she uses her alone time to recharge and recenter herself. She’s not big on pity parties.”

Before he left, the human turned and gave Tiran a lopsided grin.

“I guess we’ll be seeing each other in about six hundred years?”

Tiran’s mandibles fluttered at the joke. “I guess we will. Safe travels.”

“You too, Kandros.”

-

Tiran wondered how Scott had figured out his name. He wasn’t wearing any Initiative or Heirarchy gear, which might have carried his name or battalion.

He wondered if Ponytail knew it too, and if he’d ever figure out her name.

_BANG._

A pair of boots slammed against an empty locker.

The young female Ryder was bent over on one of the benches, a towel over her shoulders, and her face hidden by the bangs of her hair, which still hung tight in its usual ponytail. It wasn’t until he stepped closer that he realized that her shoulders were shaking, and he was watching a human woman crying.

He kept close to the walls, it wasn’t his first time walking in on a grieving individual. It was, however, his first time walking in on one with biotic powers, and today, he wasn’t feeling particularly lucky.

Without lifting her head, Ryder barked, “Go away!”

Tiran resorted to the easiest weapon to use in his arsenal: humor.  
“I would, but my stuff is here,” her head whipped up, “Mind if I grab it?”

Color flushed across her cheeks, and Tiran found himself unsure if it was due to embarrassment, anger, exhaustion, or… something else.

“Yeah… sorry about that.” She rubbed the back of her head. “Thought you were somebody else.”

He circled the locker room, picking his way over to the nook that he had secured for himself. He could have kept his mouth shut, and really, he should have. But Tiran Kandros was doing a terrible job of following through with things that he should do today. Why start now?

“Bad day, huh?” He opened his locker, and turned to nod at her.

Her eyes glinted, but not in the brand of blue that made her a real threat. She held his gaze for a moment, and then huffed, and focused on rubbing her knuckles, which were a raw pink.

“The worst.”

Tiran didn’t push it, as he sorted through his clothing, and began unwrapping the foot tape that he reserved for gym sessions. But she kept talking.

“I haven’t seen them in over a year, you know? And Scott… I mean, Scott was happy enough. But he’s an optimist. He looks for the good things to the point of it being delusional. He’s my twin, you know?”

“Ah.” Tiran flared his mandibles to show interest. With his feet bare, he had to hold back a sigh of relief while she plowed on. He wasn’t sure what he had done to open the floodwaters to her conversational side, but he wasn’t about to shut it off.

“But our dad is another story. Don’t get me wrong, he’s my dad, and I love him,” she waved a hand as she folded her dirty shirt and leggings together, “but we never see eye to eye on anything. Anything. I thought being away for a while would help things, but…”

He noticed her fist clench, and he decided to deploy more humor.

“Sounds like they both need someone like you in their lives then. Isn’t it true that human men can’t survive without a woman taking care of them?”

She snorted.

“I think that’s true for any species. It’s a good thing the director is Jien, and not somebody like Macen or Tann, then, huh?”

Being reminded of leaving the Milky Way wasn’t unlike a punch to Tiran’s gut. Just as he was about to change clothing, he stopped cold, and sat down to think about his homeworld.

Ryder must have picked up on his discomfort, so she took charge of the conversation. Call it genuine curiosity.

“You going alone?”

Tiran didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”

She blinked a few times, and tilted her head in a quizzical manner. “What, no family?”

“You really want to know?” 

She bit her lip, and slowly shook her head.

“Honestly, its none of my business. But…” she patted down her last clothing item, left only in a pair of black briefs and one of the strange sports bras that humans seemed so fond of wearing, “I find it surprising that there’s nobody in this galaxy for you that has made it worth staying for.”

Tiran stood up, feeling slightly offended, and not sure why. “I could say the same for you.”

“You don’t know me very well. Besides, I have my family to tag along with.”

“And I could see how well that was working for you.” 

Her face pinched up. Right on target. Tiran should have stopped there, grabbed his duffel, and left like a decent turian. But he didn’t. He kept going.

“I’m not going to pretend I understand what the hell sort of problem your family has. I’ve got bigger issues of my own. And you do too.”

“Nobody asked you to give me advice.”

“No, but if you think lashing out will make you friends in Andromeda, then maybe you’re not in the right place.”

Daggers were shooting from her eyes.

“I’m not here to make friends,” she ground out. Tiran raised a brow.

“You had me fooled.”

An awkward silence hung over the room. After a few seconds, she smacked her duffel off the bench and onto the ground. She marched up to him, and stood less than a foot away.

“You’re an ass.”

Tiran chortled. He knew she meant to be mean, but all it came across as was endearing.

He cocked one hip, and leaned against the lockers behind him.

“What are you going to do about it?”

It seemed to shock them both when she gripped him by the waist of his pants, and pulled him down for a kiss that bordered on concussive.

Their foreheads mashed together, and Tiran was slightly surprised at how her nose was able to squish and bend against his own while their mouths ground together. By the time they pulled apart, Tiran had somehow magically circled an arm around her, and she was clutching his waist. Her breath was hot, and fanned across his mouth and neck in a way that felt deliciously obscene.

“Are you… propositioning me?”

Part of her looked taken aback. Another part looked frustrated. When he saw a flush of color on her cheeks, he took some selfish satisfaction knowing that at the very least, he had been able to do something besides sparring that could knock her on her ass. She stepped away, wringing her hands as if they had been burnt.

Her eyes shifted down, and she scowled.

“If you want to put it that way.”

Tiran had always had a turian sensibility about sex; as long as there was mutual interest, an appropriate location for bed sport, and proper precautions taken, he was game.

What he and Ponytail had didn’t really qualify as shared interest so much as shared tension… they were alone, but in a locker room… and not a single contraceptive to be found, though, being of different species made that point completely null. So all of the items on the checklist were marked off, if only just barely.

He chuckled as he tugged his workout shirt over his head. It was especially difficult today; the knots and bruising in his shoulders made him feel slow and heavy.

“I didn’t catch your name back there. Mind if I ask--“ suddenly she was there, right in front of him, her mouth and eyes cutting jagged lines across the space between them. Her hands reached out to his own.

“Don’t say it. I don’t want to know your name. You don’t want to know mine. It’s better like this.”

She didn’t look him in the eyes. She kept her focus on her hands, which were gripping at all of the fabric that had bunched around his wrists and hands. He found himself struck by how pale her skin looked in the terrible blue fluorescent lighting of the room. And how many bruises covered her arms, all in varying stages of healing.

A shiver ran from his gut to his mandibles when he followed the line of her arms, up to her shoulders, and along her throat. He twisted his wrists so that he could grip his almost-discarded shirt, and used it as leverage to tug her close.

Her breathing stopped momentarily. He could feel her little alien heart fluttering, and the muscles in her arms were wound tight.

_Good._

In a textbook wrestling move, he crossed his arms, and flicked his hands over her head so that she was twisted around and trapped against him. An indignant huff escaped her, but he was equally amazed and satisfied when he felt her press into his groin. She even tilted her head so that her throat was open to him.

The scowl was gone, but her eyes stayed on the floor.

He decided to take a leap, and nuzzled into the crook of her neck. Having her hair tied in a ponytail made things easy.

He was rewarded with a moan when he lifted his mandibles away and nipped at a particularly soft stretch of skin. He couldn’t tell if her expression had softened, but for the moment, he stopped caring.

Her hands, still gripping the shirt that kept his hands trapped around her, had just barely loosened, and drifted down to her lower belly. His own hands followed, and he was pleased to find a generous amount of heat and… slickness coming from between her legs.

He promptly dragged her underwear halfway down her thighs while still bound by his own shirt before giving up on the task and returning to her sex with his talons.

He ventured further in, wishing he had more time to explore her anatomy. But there was something urgent, like if they didn’t hurry, the opportunity would be forever lost. A human tale about a woman fleeing a party at the stroke of midnight flashed in the back of his mind, and an uncomfortable thought took its place.

She must have been lonely. Not that he would ever dare say such a thing out loud at a time like this, where he was knuckle deep in her most intimate parts and she still had the power to knock him out with a biotic punch, but he thought it all the same.

The universe was full of people, and for her to feel like this was the only way to find release? The turian was equally flattered and frustrated. So he focused on the task at hand to keep himself from thinking too hard about it.

He brushed and circled and rubbed at her, trying to figure out how to best buckle her legs. She wasn’t a turian, so it wasn’t like he could fall back on his usual tricks…

A gasp escaped her when he found a small bump set right above her entrance. She jolted under his hands, as if electrocuted, but pressed back into his palm almost immediately.

He had her. 

He continued to lavish his attention on that little ridge, kneading the flesh around it and alternating between teasing her and dragging out lusty sounds of contentment when he pressed the pad of his finger against her sex.

Ryder wound herself up, tighter and tighter, wrapping herself literally and figuratively around his finger.

And when her palms flew away from his own hands, and smacked back against the lockers with a cry, Tiran let out a smug, warbling chuckle of his own, and let the vibrations of his chest match with her labored breathing.

Her warm, almost salty scent, mixed with Tiran’s own drunken arousal, was almost enough for him to unsheathe right onto her bare back. His strange little dance partner began to slowly roll her hips back against him while he brushed and rubbed at her groin, coaxing her to open up to him.

He murmured into her hair, “Are you sure this is how you want it?”

Her eyes shot up to his, and she met his mouth with a dry, burning, “Yes.”

She pressed into him, pushing them back step by step, until the back of his carapace met a locker door with a loud _clang!_ He tugged the shirt out of her grip, and tossed it onto the ground so that he could fully occupy his hands with her body.

It wasn’t easy. She was already thin and wiry by human standards, and the addition of sweat and an angry gyration of her hips made it near impossible to give Tiran a chance to explore further. So he settled for the next best thing, and bent his head down to her so that he could taste her.

Teeth and tongues clashed, and somewhere in the middle of it, he found the taste of tart fruit and salted meats, as if she was something that could be bitten into and savored over long, slow bites.

His thumbs slipped under the band of her bra. It was amazing how simple yet annoying this swath of fabric was. He didn’t fully understand what made these small mounds of muscle and fat so appealing to men, but he’d be damned if he didn’t love the sound that this woman made when he dragged his hands over them. It almost made him wish for a mouth that worked like a human’s, complete with fleshy, vacuum-forming cheeks, so that he could experience what it would be like to kiss and suck on her flesh.

A final, desperate kick on Ponytail’s part had her underwear on the ground and fully nude in front of him.

Tiran reached to pull down his own pants, but was grabbed by the waist, and dragged to one of the benches. He didn’t put up a fight about it. 

His butt hit the bench with an undignified thud, and she was on him again. Her mouth found his, and she leaned him back so that he was lying on the bench, and she was straddling him.

Tiran moaned and forgot to breathe as he watched her grind him into the bench. Her fingers kept slipping on the edges of his chest, right where the hide met the carapace, and it made him dizzy.

With a snarl and a jerk of the hips, he lifted himself enough to yank his pants down to his knees, so that now the only thing between him and her hot, dripping core was the small stretch of skin and muscle that kept him sheathed.

But that was something that could be easily fixed.

A strategically placed talon slipped between her legs, and she was reduced to gasps and mewling. The sight of her arching up from his body was enough to cause his erection to pop out. His shaft was an obscene shade of inky blue against her own skin, and he snarled at the thought of pushing into her.

“Do that again,” she gasped. He tested out another deep grumble, and was pleased to see her close her eyes and lean into him.

_Ah. So that’s what gets her hot._

Tiran reached up to her head, and gripped the back of her neck to pull her down against his chest. In an impossibly smooth jolt of his hips, he had managed to wedge his cock against her entrance, and between that and his purring, she was practically sobbing for relief.

Tiran could feel his sex throbbing uncomfortably, and knew he had to work fast. He bucked his hips and gripped both sides of her waist. It took vast amounts of self control to limit himself, and not fuck her outright. But a groan escaped him, and he forgot what the vibrations did to her own self control, and suddenly, her inner thighs were wrapped around his hips, and his sex was fully inserted into hers.

His mandibles practically ripped themselves from his face, and his eyes squinched shut as he found himself sheathed in the hottest, tightest, and fiercest little cunt that he had ever had. Blood was rushing to his groin at a painfully quick rate, and he could feel hot, liquid release welling at the base of his shaft

He was just barely getting started, but he was already _so damn close._

The cries that came out of his partner’s mouth didn’t help the situation. She gasped one second, then moaned, deep and rough the next. He carefully rolled his hips to make sure the sounds weren’t a result of feelings of pain. When she returned the motion, he jerked into a more… productive pace, and within seconds she was riding him hard enough to make the bench stutter and rattle.

The both of them quickly learned how to match the other’s motions. Her hips were deliciously flexible, and a pang of regret filled the turian when he realized he wouldn’t be able to experience moving them from another position, especially one where she could be bent over for him. 

At one point, she slipped, and he almost lost the pattern of movement that their fucking had taken them. His hands ran over her slick entrance while he adjusted, and then, only then did he decide to see what his partner’s sex looked like.

He couldn’t help but gasp when he looked at the joining of their bodies; both of their parts ground together in a mix of translucent fluid, and some of it was smeared along the outer edge of his thumb.

He hadn’t realized that she had been looking down at the same thing, too, until she gripped the offending hand, and brushed the thumb along her lips so that she was tasting it. So that she was tasting them.

_Fucking Spirits._

Three powerful pulses took over Tiran’s body. At the last one, he dragged her down by the shoulders, raked his talons down her back, and gripped her ass so that his climax was completed deep inside her. Her hands flew to the back of his head, and they clutched each other for a handful of slow, deep thrusts.

He could feel his vision going into a hazy blue. His climax had been explosive, and he dared not try to think too hard. At least, not when her hips were starting to move so fast and hard and…

Wait.

 

She huffed as she slowed down. Before she could swing her leg back or pull away, Tiran gripped her, and held her against him despite the delicious feeling of exhaustion that was lapping at the back of his head.

Her mouth opened to protest, but he beat her to it.

“You didn’t…”

“I… what?” Her brows crinkled together. The turian sighed, and dragged his talons up her back.

“You didn’t… find physical release.”

If she blushed, he couldn’t tell through the sweat and already-pink sheen of her skin.

“Yeah, well. Being a biotic, you find some things…ah! More difficult. Like gaining weight. Or having a full night’s sleep. I guess you can add orgasms to that list.”

She tilted her head away, and attempted to sit back up. Tiran let her, but cupped her chin and gave her a close inspection. This time, she met his eyes with her own. 

Then an idea crossed his mind.

He sat up fast enough that he almost banged heads with her. He gripped her waist, and shifted her so that he could stand up.

“What are you-“ she yelped.

Tiran dragged her by the wrist to the nearest shower, and set the water as hot as he could stand. Steam quickly billowed in the stall.

He turned to her, and pulled her tight against him.

“I don’t have time to teach you all about turian sex etiquette, but I will say this. It’s bad manners to blow off steam with someone, get off, and not help your partner do the same.”

“I don’t need-“

“Maybe you don’t _need_ it. But I’ll bet my entire rifle collection that it’s been long enough that you _want_ it.”

She spent two, maybe three seconds scowling at him, her dark brown eyes reflecting his own alien blue before she dragged him down for another sloppy kiss.

“Am I really that easy to read?” she hissed.

Tiran didn’t answer. He let her tongue writhe against his own, and he pulled her into the shower stall as slowly as he could bear. His hands encircled her waist.

The hot water coursed over them, and the turian basked in the delicious smell of her body mixed with his in the steam.

Tiran silently thanked whatever spirits made it possible for there to be a small bench in each shower. Without it, he would have had a terribly difficult time trying to pleasure this woman. Her skin became slick and almost rubbery under the hot water, and her bucking against his hand made it that much more difficult to keep her under his thumb. He turned her so that she was facing the wall of the shower, and she lifted her right leg onto the bench so that his exploring left hand could easily slide down at the joining of her legs.

She gasped when his primary finger rubbed against her outermost folds, and the two of them savored the feeling of her rump pressing back and into his groin.

He might have considered kneeling down and using his mouth to finish her off, but something told him that a direct approach would work better. Besides that, he didn’t want to wake up the next morning with a numb tongue. Or worse.

When all was said and done, Tiran found himself enjoying this dark and dirty part of him that was playing along with the human. No names, no dates, no promises, just a physical agreement that was being fulfilled as hard and fast as they could take it.

That thought alone made him hard again.

Her fists were clenched against the wall of the shower, and each stroke of his hand drew out raspy sounds from her mouth.

He leaned as close as he could, and hummed against the back of her ear. When she arched her back in response, his subharmonics dropped an octave, and suddenly, she was quivering against him. His gestures became less and less gentle. Part of him worried that he might cut her, but his hand was practically trapped inside her, and she was pushing back just as hard as he was, so he continued.

As his hand pumped faster, a glow of lavender covered her body. She was gasping, and with each rise and fall of her breast, the unholy light swelled and faded with her. Tiran couldn’t help but tense up; he wasn’t sure how biotics mixed with water, and he wasn’t eager to find out.

But as he unraveled more ribbons of lust from her body, he felt her biotics as something warm, rather than electric. 

His thumb brushed the small nub at her entrance, and it sent a delicious biotic shockwave through his body. He waited a few seconds, dragging it along with a crook of his finger, and he did it again. She moaned, and another biotic pulse covered them. He kept doing it, carefully timing and speeding up his motions until they were both panting.

He wanted to enter her again, find another wave of release. But anything besides fucking her with his finger would slow them down and put them back at square one, and Tiran was not one for erasing good progress.

With a rough squeeze of her hip, and a curl of his knuckle, he had her nearly screaming and filling the stall with a blindingly bright light. It was perfect.

 

-

 

Somehow, both of them came to and found themselves crouched on the floor, hot water still pouring overhead, and their breathing ragged and uneven.

Somewhere in the mess, Ponytail’s ponytail had been tugged out, and her hair hung in wet strands. Tiran found himself combing a hand absentmindedly through it, and humming some soft and low wordless lullaby.

After a few seconds, the woman leaned back against his chest, and gave him a sleepy smile. He wanted to run his fingers along her mouth, and try kissing her again, and all sorts of other things…

Still half-dazed by the sex, Tiran made a surprisingly sober promise to himself. If sex with a biotic was like this, he swore that the moment he woke up in Andromeda, he would spend all of his spare time and energy trying to reunite with this woman.

The only clue he had so far was the Pathfinder and her brother, and that meant she was…

“Ryder.” The word slipped out before he knew he actually said it.

She came down from her high, and she looked like she got slapped in the face. She shot to her feet, and wobbled.

Tiran watched her from his corner of the stall. Her small, wet human feet made light _smack smacks_ on the tile of the locker room as she hunted down her underwear. Wordlessly, Tiran rose, and sauntered out to find an unused towel.

By the time he tracked down a towel and wrapped it around his waist, she had found her clothes, and was struggling to put them on.

He waited. When she was fully dressed, he handed an extra towel to her, and pointed at the wet mop of hair on her head.

He had been an idiot. Playing along with no names and no pretenses, and doing so well… and then he had to go and open his idiot mouth and say that? He couldn’t help but duck his head in embarrassment.

“I shouldn’t have said that.”

A little color returned to her cheeks, and an attempt at a smile flickered across her face. She shook her head so that her hair was dry and free of the towel, and she reached out so that he could take the towel away.

“It’s alright.”

“Will we see each other again soon?”

She pressed up to him, resting her fingers on his chest. Her eyes searched his, and an unfamiliar expression crossed her face. Her mouth formed as if preparing to say something, but then the words seemed to catch in her throat, and she stuttered. After a few seconds, the trademark scowl returned, and she stepped away.

“I have to go.”

Tiran pulled his hand away from her hair. He didn’t like it, but he understood. She was a flighty human, like a wild animal, and the last thing he needed to do was keep her gripped in his hand. Just like his mother had taught him, it was better to let something run away and have a chance to come back than pin it down in a diorama.

It only took a moment for her to slide on her shoes, drag her duffel onto her shoulder, and a few quick steps before she was out of the locker room and seemingly out of his life.

All he had left of their encounter was the fast-fading scent of her on his skin, and a towel that had been used to ruffle her hair.

_By the spirits…_

So what if she was the Pathfinder’s daughter? So what if she was a human? So what if she was the most antagonizing sentient being that he had ever come across in this galaxy?

He wouldn’t have it any other way. He just needed to get through one long stasis sleep, and a couple weeks on each end out of the cryo pod, and he’d be able to continue the chase.

She’d be somewhere out there, and he’d be right at her back, hopefully in more ways than one.

For the first time in many months, Tiran found himself thinking that Andromeda was becoming more and more promising by the hour.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sara finds a certain turian after her wakeup in Andromeda takes some unavoidable turns for the worse. (in game spoilers!)

Rock bottom.

That was what Sara could have sworn she hit the moment Ark Hyperion locked onto the Nexus.

Habitat 7 had gone to shit. Their first contact with a new alien species had been a slaughter. Her brother was stuck in his cryopod, his day of awakening still to be determined. And her father. Her father was gone. One minute she had been choking on the poisoned air of Habitat 7, and the next, she was dragging herself off an operating table with an AI plugged into her brain, topped off with a surprise promotion to human Pathfinder.

_Dad…_

But she kicked the thoughts away before she could truly form them. Now wasn’t the time to mourn. There was too much at stake for her to jump in the backseat and let someone else do the driving. This was on her now.  
And if her meeting with the captain had been any indicator of what was waiting for her on the Nexus, Sara didn’t feel very confident about what the future of humanity held.

She caught herself trying to physically wipe away the bitter taste that lingered in the corners of her mouth when she snapped at the team on the bridge. Walking to the Nexus felt more like running away from the bridge than she cared to admit. At least her current squad was carrying her dead weight and leaden attitude.

Liam and Cora deserved more credit than she had given them back on Habitat 7. They were good additions to the Pathfinder team. Hell, they deserved to be the goddamn Pathfinder more than she did. Their voices were quiet in the halls of Hyperion, and were only interrupted by the distant hum of the thrusters powering down. Hyperion was latching onto the Nexus; the mood of the entire process felt more of a funeral than a reunion as there were only a handful of people running around in the dark, all clipped voices and too-quick-for-comfort footsteps. It all felt wrong.

But at least Sara’s companions kept their wits about them, and did their best to maintain Sara’s as well.  
She chose her words carefully as they checked in on her, step by step. _Tell them you’re okay. Say something about Dad. Don’t think too hard about it. Take another step. Tell them you’re okay._

They were the voices of reason that kept her brain on a repeated loop. It wasn’t ideal, but it beat the hell out of losing her temper, and setting off a biotic charge.

They boarded the tram, and sat together while it pulled them into the Nexus command center.

Liam said something about champagne. Cora was typing and searching for contact points with the Nexus on her Omni tool. Sara wished she had some champagne, or something with enough carbonation to calm the gurgling knot that her intestines had tied themselves into. Why was it so dark in the tram?

The ride was long enough that they settled into their seats. Sara kept herself occupied by counting the lights that slid by every few seconds. It was almost physically painful when the tram stopped, opened, and they were greeted with more darkness.

Then she heard something about champagne again.

And the operations center, which should have been bright and bustling with life, was painted a midnight blue and devoid of life.

“Where the hell is everybody?” she whispered, suddenly regretting her choice to not bring a firearm. The universe was much more full of surprises to her ever since waking up from Habitat 7. Who knew what was going on here…

Each of them began to wander, slow and cautious like a child sneaking out of their room to get a midnight snack. Cora was the first to find something. She had discovered a holograph, an asari projection with an uncomfortably cheery voice. Given the setting, Sara almost expected their new friend to flicker out and become possessed. The thought humored her enough to remind her to take a deep breath.

“… It’s normal to feel disoriented, or confused upon arrival. Our helpful medical staff can assist you…”

Sara had to feign interest in a plastic crate to keep herself from imagining the countless therapy sessions she would have to go through when all of this was said and done. There was no point in looking for a rag to wipe shit off of your boots when you were still in the middle of wading through an entire field of shit.

And then she saw a human with a headlamp, tangled in a mess of electrical wiring.

A human. Thank god.

And they aren’t dead. Or sick. 

_Or shooting at us. Even better._

Cora and Liam booked it up to the orange suit, and began talking. As it turned out, both sides were surprised to see each other alive.

“We thought you were all dead.” Even a soft voice couldn’t hide the incredulity. Sara silently wondered if the Nexus had faced similar circumstances. Had anybody died? Why wasn’t there any power? Who was in charge? What the hell was going on?

Sara’s companions continued to interrogate and exchange glances, and Sara was ready to just lie down on the floor and call it a day.

“I don’t believe it.”

And there he was.

The turian from the Citadel, before their 600-year nap. The one with the blue markings. That handsome, infuriating asshole that had been at the gym. The one she had fucked, and run away from before the sweat had even cooled.

And she didn’t even know his name.

He reached out to shake her hand as if it truly was the first time they had met. His hand clasped around hers, and his face tilted down so that the light caught his bone-colored plates, making him the brightest thing in the room. Sara felt numb while his voice rattled in her head. She gripped his forearm as if she would float away at any second.

“I’m Tiran Kandros, head of the Nexus militia…”

But all she could think about was his name. Tiran. Tiran. Tiran.

What else could possibly matter now, now that she knew his name?

Grinding out her own name, and the names of Liam and Cora, she found them all being whisked up to Operations. She wasn’t sure if the leadership truly did come from the Milky Way, or if they were just klixen in sentient species’ bodies.

She could feel her thumbs and lips going numb, much like the shock of overusing her biotics. Any other time, she might have slipped off to a bathroom to splash cold water on her face, but the scowls and snaps that came from Addison, Tann, and Kesh made her rethink her plans.

By the time she finished hearing the woeful tale of the Nexus from the leadership, Sara Ryder learned that sometimes you hit rock bottom and bounce back, but sometimes, you hit rock bottom and get dragged along for a few miles.

It wasn’t until Addison had turned away, and half of the Nexus’ power grid illuminated the Operations overlook that Sara half fell, half stumbled onto a bench.

Yep, this was rock bottom, through and through.

But she turned her head to the militia offices. Now she had a name.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello naughty children! Enough people asked that I finally got off my butt and followed up on these two space lunatics. 
> 
> Sorry-not-sorry to those of you who were hoping for more smut in this chapter; this was the literary version of forcing you to eat your vegetables before we dive into some serious turian-flavored cake.
> 
> I also tried some very different writing methods with this chapter, so if you enjoyed anything here, I would love to know! I'm trying to get out of my minuscule writing comfort zone :)


	3. Chapter 3

It was nearly two weeks before Tiran was face to face with Sara Ryder after she docked on the Nexus. 

Nineteen days, two new Tempest crew members, and couple hundred dead kett before he found her, chatting with Mariette in the militia offices as if it was something she did on a daily basis.

Not that he had been keeping track of it or anything.

The irony of seeing Sara taking a break from resurrecting Eos by investigating a turian murderer was not lost on Tiran. When he first reviewed the combat footage relayed by Kosta, he found himself in awe of the destructive force that the young human Pathfinder used to get her way. Tactics that would have been deemed impossible by his APEX teams turned into a concert of gunfire, lightning, and green blood spilled in the sand, with a biotic prima donna always in the spotlight.

Considering everything he knew about her personal life, he was surprised that she didn’t spontaneously combust with the pressure of being an all-powerful biotic Pathfinder while also dealing with the psychological trauma that she had gone through on Habitat 7.

When he found out that Alec Ryder had been killed in an attempt to save Sara’s life, and her brother was in an indefinite coma, Tiran had become physically ill, and had to read the report three times over before it stuck. Even if he had never met Sara when they had been in the Milky Way, he felt intense sympathy and distress when he imagined what it must be like inside her mind. He was sure that there were many layers of stress and trauma that she was carrying that she would never admit to any psychologist.

And somehow, she kept on fighting. The Kandros family spirit chided him, though. All she _could_ do was fight.

None of the APEX hunters even came close to the deadly determination of Sara Ryder. And that included fighters he had known all those rough, lean months in darkness when they had first crashed into the Scourge. It almost made him grateful that he had never had the time to take anybody from the Initiative to his bed. How could he, when someone like Sara Ryder existed in the universe?

So when he finally saw her in his own offices, chatting with his staff and asking about Nilken of all people, he found his mandibles pinching tighter than he cared to admit. Even when she greeted him, her voice warm and full of questions and seemingly good intent, his own tone kept her at a distance. He could handle pillowtalk any day of the week. But questions of work, and weather, and Jien Garson’s dream left high and dry?

He kept his responses to her questions clipped and terse.

It wasn’t until that day when she came to his offices that he actually noticed her scar. A mauve starburst ran along the left side of her upper lip; it was a reminder of the helmet that had shattered on Habitat 7, and a warning of just how quickly the toxic air of the planet could work against the human body. Even with Milky Way tech and AI’s and the ability to survive a millennium sleep, there were just some things that couldn’t be fully fixed or erased.

As disgruntled as he was, he found the scar a good fit not only for her complexion, but also for her scrappy attitude and resilient nature.

Just when he caught himself internally debating, her hand went to an ear, receiving some secret transmission that would most likely call her back to the Tempest, a small twinge of regret filled him at not throwing at least one flirtatious line at her. And when unspoken apologies filled her eyes, and she said something about duty calling, he commenced with mentally calling himself an idiot in every galactic language he knew.

And it went that way for several days. Every time she visited, the conversations were too short to deviate from dry professionalism, and always ended with her running off to complete another task or put out another fire.

 

\---

 

It was late at night nearly a month after they reunited that Tiran got an unexpected call.

It was well into the midnight hours on the Nexus cycle. The militia offices were all but empty; Tiran had been filing through countless APEX profiles and trying to sort old business from new for nearly five hours straight. When his terminal lit up with its characteristic orange glow, at first, he had thought he was slipping into a dream.

The vid call came through, with a sender labeled “H Carlyle.” When Tiran accepted the transmission, he was greeted by a human tucked into a desk surrounded by datapads and bright white lights. Medical uniform. Probably a doctor high on the staffing ladder.

“Tiran Kandros? I’m Doctor Harry Carlyle for Ark Hyperion, and the standby doctor for the human Pathfinder team.”

There was something about his voice that Tiran found familiar, but he couldn’t put his talon on it. So he kept things strictly business.

“What can I do for you, doctor?”

“I’ve been in charge of Scott Ryder’s condition since we’ve docked. But I need to talk with you about Sara.”

A chill ran through Tiran. Scott was still stuck in the cryo bay, with no planned release date. If Scott’s personal doctor was more concerned about something regarding Sara, then it was definitely something to worry about.

“What about the Pathfinder?”

“I won’t go into the details of it, but we were able to communicate with Scott while he was in his coma. He’s fine, no pain or damage, but…” he looked off the screen for a moment, appearing to deliberate and choose each of his words carefully, “it didn’t go well between him and Sara.”

Tiran chose to ignore the sickening lurch of his gizzard stones that warned him that this conversation was taking a personal turn.

“No offense, doctor, but I’m militia. Not a member of the Pathfinder’s team. Why are you telling me this?”

More deliberating looks.

“Honestly, Kandros? You’re the only member of Nexus leadership that she seems to listen to. She ran away as soon as we cut the link with Scott. Her crew informed me that she’s been at the Vortex bar, ignoring all of their calls ever since.”

“When did you cut the link?”

“Early this morning, around oh-nine hundred.”

Damn. Tiran didn’t like where the conversation was going.

“So what do you want from me?”

Carlyle sighed. He had to say it straight if he ever wanted anything from a turian.

“Just… get her somewhere where she can stop being Pathfinder for more than a couple hours. She needs rest. And time away from her biotic amps.”

“Why are you asking me? Why can’t her crew get her and take her home?”

“Like I said,” he sighed again, “she listens to you. She values your opinion. And you get shit done,” he chuckled and waved a hand, “even our resident krogan thinks you’d be a better fit for the job.”

Tiran clacked his mandibles, and shook his head.

“We’ve only exchanged words on a handful of occasions. I’ve never even been on the Tempest. Are you sure there isn’t someone else from the crew that would be better to send in to help her?”

“I don’t know the details, and at this point I don’t care, Kandros. A majority of the team told me that if anybody could get her out of that bar and home, it would be you. That’s good enough for me.” The look on Carlyle’s face told him that that was all he was going to say on the matter, and that this was his final time making the request.

The young turian sighed, and made a show of flashing his teeth while yawning to guilt trip the doctor.

“All right.”

The doctor looked intensely relieved, appearing to lean back in his chair.

“Thank you, Kandros.”

“You better pray that you know turian first aid though… because if this goes south and the Pathfinder goes biotic, I’m blaming you and making you patch me up.”

He didn’t wait to see Carlyle’s reaction.

He shut off his terminal, and cracked his neck on both sides before removing the militia patch that he used on his armor while on-duty. He was a little pissed that he didn’t even have time to go to his apartment to change clothes, but he supposed that that was what he deserved for working late hours.

He had no idea _how_ exactly the Tempest crew had come to learn that he and Ryder were on speaking terms, let alone good terms. But if he knew anything about Sara Ryder and their history together, the terror of having to address her subordinates to get that information made him pick up his pace enough to catch the next tram to the docking bay.

 

\---

 

Sara couldn’t remember when she actually lost count of the drinks on her tab. Rage and sorrow had been boiling in her belly from the moment she stepped out of the cryo bay. She couldn’t even get a simple conversation with her brother right.

_Hi, my name is Sara Ryder, and I take cosmic miracles and fuck them all to hell._

To say that they had a rough time reuniting would have been an understatement. Discussing Habitat 7 was painful and awkward. Telling Scott about their father had gone south like a flock of geese. Being forced to cut the link with him had been her final straw. All things considered, her greatest accomplishment up to that point in the morning had been keeping herself from crying when she left.

The stress must have put blinders on her, though, because one moment she was regulating her breathing in a tram, and the next, she was stomping into the Vortex bar, dead set on getting stupid drunk.

The barkeep, Dutch something-or-other, looked ready to bolt when she claimed that first drink tasted like dishwater. But she had said something… something along the lines of demanding to sample every cocktail he had come up with so far and throwing a credit chit at him.

All she remembered past that was a shot of what she swore was cherry-flavored cough syrup, and a rainbow of drinks that were set onto her table by a trio of starstruck engineers. If she got into a cycle of “No, let _me_ buy _you_ a round of drinks!” she didn’t recall.

Being a top-tier biotic made getting drunk an expensive and time-consuming endeavor, but when she hit that beautiful plateau of warmth and not giving a shit, she found the spent credits worth it. Faces and hours and drinks streamed by like some sort of sentient river. She didn’t bother remembering anything that passed her table.

What she did remember, however, was the call from Cora. Her omnitool buzzed, and Sara bit back the bitter taste that filled her mouth at the thought of discussing the morning with anyone. So she declined the call.

And the second call.

And the call from Liam. And Vetra. And Lexi. Even Drack.

At one point, she might have recalled seeing Peebee slide into a seat next to her, with her eyes darting about and watching the glasses that Sara sloshed around. They didn’t talk, or, if there was any words exchanged, they all came from the asari while Ryder played mute. Sara had no idea if Peebee had just been a hallucination created by her guilty conscience, but when the asari finally slipped away and left her to her own dark musings, she was relieved. 

The relief sustained her through most of the evening as she continued to drink and keep people away from her table. When she actually dedicated the brain cells to her own thoughts, though, she realized that there was really only one individual that she wanted to share a drink with. And it wasn't anyone from her own family.

Her thoughts carelessly slipped into memories of pressing up against cold, metal lockers and the sensation of alien talons raking across her body.

So when Tiran Kandros appeared across the room, as if summoned by her own dirty thoughts, she almost choked on her drink.

_Here comes your knight in shining armor._

She relished the dual rush of heat that she got in her cheeks and belly when she watched him saunter up to her. His legs were still slightly bent as a result of post-cryo therapy that hadn’t been completed, but it didn’t keep her from appreciating the sinewy lines of his thighs and imagining the fit of her legs over his hips…

“Ryder.” Gods, even hearing one word from him made her want to be indecent.

“Yeahh?”

“I think its time for you to call it a night.” One of his massive talons reached out, and slid her current drink away from her. Surprisingly, she wasn’t at all upset at the removal of her liquid entertainment. But then again, nothing was quite as enticing to her at this very moment as a chance to get Tiran Kandros alone with her.

“Not tired yet. I’m juss getting shtarted…” she slurred happily.

“You’re drunk.”

“I earned it.”

Tiran sat fully in the seat across from her, a frown crushing his facial plates together. When he spoke, his voice took a special brand of dark and low and vicious, and Sara almost missed what he was saying.

“And what exactly are you planning to do with your earned intoxication? Go on another mission with the Tempest? Talk to Tann? Shoot someone?”

Ryder lurched to her feet, a sudden wave of fury giving her drunken body enough coordination to hold her ground. The turian’s voice had been so quiet yet so biting. Nobody outside the Tempest and Operations offices had ever had the nerve to question her leadership, so the words surprised her. Angry words spilled out of her mouth almost immediately.

“How _dare you_ ,” she whispered. “You talked… about wanting your own adventure,” her head began to spin, and her tongue felt too thick and slow for the words that were trying to escape, “and that you didn’t want to be the good one… Well… fuck you, Kandrosh, you’re _not_ a good turian. You can- _hic!_ Hide in your office all day if you want to. I can’t. Every room I’m in on every planet I go to… its ‘Parthfinder this! Pathfinder that!” her voice was a low snarl by now. “Nobody ashksh how- _hic!_ Sara is feeling. So. Fuck. You.” She grabbed her glass and took a long draught before smacking it back down and wiping her mouth. “And I’ve never brought a gun onto the Nexshus, sho you can take your… turian _honor_ and shove it up your ass.”

She was dangerously close to crying, and so she pinched the bridge of her nose and scowled at the tabletop. When she felt Tiran’s gloved hand reach out to grip her shoulder, she sucked in a breath.

“Sara,” _why was his voice still so sexy when she was so mad at him,_ “let me take you home. You need to take off your Pathfinder badge for a little bit.”

“No. ‘M mad at you.”

“Fine. Be mad at me. I can deal with it… but wouldn’t you rather fall asleep in your own bed than in a dirty booth in a bar?”

_I’d rather be ravished by you in my own bed, but that’s beside the point._ Years of avoiding talks with potential bedmates about being a Ryder, _yes, that Ryder_ , had trained her not to speak in innuendos in public places. But she’d be damned if she wasn’t tempted at this point.

She sighed. Her poorly-built defenses fell apart against the soothing subtones of his voice. If she couldn’t have him in her bed, at least she could have him on her arm and get a few minutes together before she went back into the glamorous role of humanity’s final hope.

She let herself be a little extra petulant as an indulgence.

“Wanna take my drink.”

“Forget it. I’m leaving now, and I’m not coming back if you stay.” 

The quiet authority in his voice meant any discussion of alcohol was over.

“You’re so _mean._ ” she purred.

He did a splendid job at helping her out of her chair, and keeping her from swaying or stumbling as they left the bar. The last thing she needed after this morning was waking up to her trashed face on the cover of Nexus news.

The tram that they took to get to Hyperion was quiet. And as tempting as it was for Sara to reach out and try to touch or flirt with her turian companion, she kept herself at a distance. She wanted him to know that there were little consequences to making her angry. Consequences that didn’t end with mind-blowing sex.

_Real mature, Ryder._

It wasn’t until they were walking (or, in Sara’s case, stumbling) down the final hall to her quarters and she noticed that there weren’t any armed guards that it truly hit her that she was here, alone with Tiran just outside her quarters. And his arm was still bent so that she could clutch onto him, and his other hand was closed around the fist that she had formed on his sleeve.

When her door opened, and then clicked shut, her thoughts plummeted into chasms of indecency. He was here. In her quarters. Alone. With her.

Blood rushed to her groin. He hadn’t touched her since that half-pat when they parted ways while the Nexus was still in low-power mode.

And now he was here. And he was holding her. And gripping her arm and she’d be damned if she didn’t want him to continue doing it. The sweet thought turned sour when she realized that she probably wouldn’t remember this moment when she sobered up.

How they managed to find their way back to her Pathfinder quarters was a complete mystery to Sara. But as much as it mystified her, she was delighted in knowing that she finally had this particular turian alone and in private, and she didn’t have to play diplomat. She swayed and struggled to stand on her tiptoes, and her fingers gripped at different creases in the armor on Tiran’s arms. For a second, she worried about needing to lock the door to her apartment. But a single look into his crystal-clear eyes made her forget her self-modifying to-do list.

She didn’t realize she was trying to kiss his throat until a dull throbbing in her nose told her she had miscalculated the distance between his collarbones and mandibles. She hoped her voice sounded better than the rasping buzz that seemed to sit between her ears. She needed to keep him where he was.

“Stay.”

“You’re drunk.” She loved the humming that went from his jugular to her lips, but was disappointed to hear his voice take a tone of rejection and not of seduction.

“Please,” she gripped his waist unceremoniously, “for old times sake.”

“You’re drunk,” he repeated, “and that was one time.” He twisted his hips so that he could evade her ever-grasping hands.

Dammit, he was being so difficult. Her intoxicated brain cells tried to switch tactics to compliments.

“You’re so tall. I miss that Kandros. I like tall guys… but wow,” she hiccupped, “you probably already knew that. You’re smart. But you’re really thin now. You lost…” _hiccup_ “a lot of weight since the gym.”

She felt his hands fall away from her more than she saw it.

She forgot her original mission when she saw the look on his face. He looked like she had physically hurt him. And it made her feel like an ass. All she had been doing was trying to compliment him, and take stock of how attractive she found him, despite the circumstances they were currently in. She wasn’t sure if it was a personal slight or a cross-species faux pas, but it made her feel bad all the same.

She was too drunk to back pedal.

“I’m sorry. That wasn’t nice to say… I… You don’t have to stay if you don’t want. I’ll be fine-"

“I’ll stay.” His hand reached up to her cheek, and something unspoken passed between them. But Tiran, ever the reality check, kept his boundaries clear. “But only for the night. And I’m _not_ having sex with you.”

She grinned, and started to take off her hoodie, which stank of sweat and sugar and alcohol. When her head got stuck in the mess of fabric, she felt his talons carefully pluck through the folds and his subvocals humming with caution.

She laughed and waved her arms about, reveling in the feeling of being free of clothes emblazoned with the Pathfinder logo, and the thought of having Tiran in her room for the night.

And then the vertigo hit her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (very quietly, to the tune of Mr. Brightside)  
> It started out as just porn, how did it end up with plot???
> 
> These two have grown their own personalities without my approval and now we suddenly have the beginnings of an actual story???
> 
> Thanks for all of the encouraging comments, they really mean a lot to me!


End file.
